customer-interview-script
Customer Interview Script Expert
Overview
Running a customer interview is harder than it looks. The difference between a 60-minute conversation that produces three actionable insights and one that produces zero is almost entirely method: what you ask, when you ask it, and what you do not ask. This skill is the live-interview companion to discovery/interview-synthesis/ (post-interview analysis) and discovery/identify-assumptions/ (which produces the questions you go in to test).
The script structure draws from four canonical sources: Steve Portigal's Interviewing Users (rapport, listening, "tell me about the last time"), Teresa Torres' Continuous Discovery Habits (story-based probing, weekly cadence), Rob Fitzpatrick's The Mom Test (avoiding compliments, opinions, and futures), and Lewis Lin's behavioral interviewing patterns (concrete-recent-relevant). The goal is to leave each interview with at least one story, one contradiction, and one surprise.
Core Capabilities
- 5-phase script -- opening/consent, context, story collection (the meat), probing/synthesis, closing -- timed for 45/60/90-minute slots.
- Story-based probing -- the story funnel and 5-Whys turn opinions into concrete-recent-relevant evidence.
- Mom Test discipline -- bad-question to good-question conversions that strip out compliments, fluff, and feature pitches.
- Question banks by type -- problem discovery, solution validation, journey mapping, churn/win-loss.
- Interview craft -- rapport rules, silence handling, pacing, pair-interviewing roles, recording/consent/storage.